tenthBlight

Yes, I'm doing this because I saw how the Rapids block works. It's got the right idea, but it's a very limited half-measure of an implementation to me. Good for now, but I would hate to see it never enriched, because it definitely does need work. Summarizing everything I say below, I feel a good way to do this would be to have the single outward water block, with the ability to represent its speed and account for things like gravity, the speed and direction of neighboring water blocks, solid blocks interrupting its path, and non-solid blocks slowing its speed through a path. This system can be represented by several blocks internally, for each tier of the water's speed, similar to a broader and dynamic implementation of the rapids block that already exists. Water blocks would first attempt to move and spread in all directions, as usual. Directions barred off by solid blocks would increase the water's speed in the directions it can move, picking directions it is able to move in until its path is interrupted again or altered. Things like waterwheels or other non-solid blocks would slow the flow of water by set amounts without interrupting its direction. Other water blocks would affect the speed and direction of their neighbors. This would simulate an inertia effect, ensuring that all the water blocks making up rivers, rivulets, and rapids flow at similar speeds and directions to their neighbors, and that these formations appear to have terminated or consolidated when flowing into larger bodies of water. I believe the current water implementation has the foundations for a system like this. This would allow for somewhat realistic implementation of the mechanics of water, and enable much diversity or 'realism' in solving hydro-technical problems. Players would not be as restricted by world generation when they are able to satisfy their water power needs with some extra building and ingenuity, adding another point to how many of the mechanics of Vintage Story encourage players, intentionally or not, to recreate real-life solutions to problems they experience in-game. My concessions are that I am not experienced with programming, and have no idea how this would be implemented on a functional level, or how taxing it would be on hardware to implement on the scale that VS worlds are generated on. I also haven't thought very thoroughly on whether or not a game like Vintage Story even 'needs' a system like this. I did come up with this on the spot, but I still don't think it sounds too unrealistic to achieve in-game, or that a hypothetical implementation would be too complex for the game. It could fall somewhere comfortably inside what the game needs and what it can handle, I believe. (Tacking more on though, something like this would work great with water work systems! Chain lifts, bucket wheels, pipes and pumps, steam power is gonna need some hydrotech to support it for scales beyond novelty, I feel.) I stand to be corrected on these naive assumptions, lol. Either way, I'm posting to the forums for a reason, so we can all discuss this! I love this game, and anything that could possibly enrich it would be amazing to see come to fruition. Thanks for reading.